Friday, 4 December 2009

3km Mum

Just a quick post tonight, almost missing out on the start of our celebration dinner!

Celebration is definitely in order today, my mum, after a 25 year hiatus returned to racing this afternoon with a cracking 3km road race at the beach in Aberdeen.

Around this time last year after 20 years of working hard looking after 3 crazy kids she decided to get back into the gym with the goal of being stronger, lighter on her feet and maybe able to keep up with me and dad a bit more on the morning dog walks. She started out on a full programme after the new year and by the summer was feeling a lot better for her efforts, in late October she went for her first run in 25 years. Since then she has ventured out a few more times but no serious run work of yet.

Out of the blue last week when I said I'd be doing the Aberdeen 3km beach run next Friday she jumped (with a little bit of persuasion) at the idea and decided to come along and race. Today however we found out (from the results from last months race) that the field was in general pretty fast (average time of 12 minutes [40min 10km pace]) and I figured she'd decide against the idea. She picked herself up though and even at the prospect of finishing last she was still adamant that she'd take part.

For me it was awesome to see my mum with so much courage in a sporting event. I've been doing this my whole life so know all about nerves and being in too deep, it took a lot for mum to want to race today and I was proud even before she started running.

I had promised that once I finished I'd run back along the course and finish the race with her. I had a good run and finished in 5th but I didn't waste any time and immediately ran back across the line (in the wrong direction) to find my mum! I spotted her pink jacket about 800m back down the path and quickly caught up to her.

She was running alongside another beginner racer and they were really pushing each other on. I did my best to shout encouragement while running alongside and she came across the line in 18 minutes and 13 seconds. Her goal was for under 20mins so she did awesome.